There were about 6,000 Pharisees. They were a middle-class Jewish pressure group united by a passionate commitment to the holiness of God. They were convinced that the standards of their society were in decline, and believed that the dreadful things that had befallen Israel had come about because people had been disobedient to God’s laws in their day-to-day behaviour. They gave themselves the task of expanding those rules to give specific instructions for how to live in every single area of a person’s life. They were a good and necessary thing! But they knew it, and that was the problem!
In contrast to the crowds who were listening to Jesus’ captivating tales, a tax collector had an altogether different reputation. The Jews of Jesus’ time were a race who had been overrun by a foreign superpower and were subject to military occupation. The Roman empire that ruled the Jews by might had conquered them because it needed the economic clout that these people, who lived on a profitable trade route, could bring. So the Roman authorities had forcibly established a method of collecting taxes from their conquered people, who obviously loathed having to pay. They employed Jewish people to collect the taxes from their own countrymen. Clearly these people were going to be despised by their own, because effectively they were collaborating with the enemy. Why would anyone do that? Money! It was because the Romans allowed the tax collectors to set their own rate of commission on top of the revenue they were collecting. So they were the kind of people who would tolerate being despised in order to be rich. Wealthy traitors!
| Humanity is never so beautiful as when praying for forgiveness or else forgiving another. John Paul Richter, German novelist, 1763–1825 |
| If I can now forgive, it is only because I have been forgiven – I and all other men and women who have ever lived. John Austin Baker, English bishop, born 1928 |
So who would you expect to come out well from a story about a Pharisee and a tax collector? It’s like putting St Agnes up against Tsar Ivan.
Well, when Jesus told that story, the St Agnes figure emerged terribly. The Pharisee was standing in front of a God who is perfect and almighty, and trying to establish that somehow he was good enough to earn God’s respect. He told God about the sins he had not committed. He stressed how he had faithfully kept all the correct religious rules. And he compared himself favourably to others.
Oh dear! You know, I’ve found myself doing all those things. I’ve read about people who have done terrible things while professing to be Christians and thought to myself, ‘Well, at least I’ve never done anything that bad.’ And I sometimes write a chapter of a book and think to myself, ‘I come out of this rather well, don’t I?’ All that might make me impressive in other people’s eyes, but it does nothing for me in God’s eyes!
Why does the Ivan the Terrible character come out of the story well? Because the tax collector stooped before God precisely as he was. No pretence! He was completely honest with God about how he was, even though he felt grim, remorseful, unworthy.
| Lord God, the truth is that I am not the best person in the world, but I am not the worst either. I am just me. Despite everything I am, and because of everything you are, have mercy I pray. Amen. |
The truth about us comes out when we are praying. Not when we are praying aloud for others to hear, but when we are alone with God. He will never turn a deaf ear to someone who is telling the truth about his or her feelings. ‘God, I am angry that you have allowed this to happen.’ God listens and God cares. ‘God, this is a desperate situation and I need help.’ God listens and God cares. ‘God, I am bored, and praying is the last thing I feel like doing.’ God listens and God cares. ‘God, I’m not even sure you are there.’ God listens and God cares.
And now I am going to tell you the most important thing I have discovered in all my years, so with all my heart I hope that you are in a quiet place when you read it.
God loves you. He loves you completely and entirely. He will never love you more than he does at this moment. Even if you become a Christian tomorrow he will not love you more than he does today. He can’t, because he loves you perfectly already. His love is absolute and has no qualifications attached to it at all.
But this liberating fact does not stop there. The truth is that not only will God never love you more, he will also never love you less. If you don’t pray to him this week he won’t love you less. If you don’t open a Bible this year he won’t love you less. If you never go to church again he won’t love you less. That is the freedom of worshipping a God who loves with no conditions, the God of grace.
That is why our God is one before whom you can be completely honest. You see, in heaven we will meet people like the tax collector – who felt he was worthless, but whose integrity shines out in Jesus’ story. People like that are forgiven in the grace of God.
But in heaven we will also meet people like the Pharisee – who tried so hard, but whose love and humility were notably missing that day in the temple. People like that are also forgiven in the grace of God. That is the extent of how loving God is.
Anything you have done – a lifetime of churchgoing, the decades of goodness, the effort of trying to get things right – is unimportant right at this moment. All God needs is for you to come in humility, saying, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord.’ And he will draw you to his lovely presence, whether you deserve it or whether you don’t. Amazing!
| Be happy! Sit for a few minutes, holding out empty hands. Just like the tax collector, tell God exactly how you are. Tell him your doubts and your hopes. Tell him the secrets you wouldn’t tell me. Tell him you’re sorry today, if that’s true. Tell him you have nothing to be sorry about today, if that’s true. Tell him what you want. He knows already, but he will deeply value the honesty. |
Be Happy! Day 6
Make yourself known
| Jesus said again, ‘I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full … I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me – just as the Father knows me and I know the Father – and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.’ John 10.7–16 |
I don’t have much experience of sheep. I’ve been a Croydon man all my life, and you have to go quite a way from South London in order to get close to one. On a shelf in my bedroom I have a toy lamb that I have had since the day I was born, now patched and bald, but I don’t think that counts.
Having said that, it is my friend Paul’s twenty-fifth birthday today, and if I can get this chapter written in the next three hours, I am hoping to get thoroughly acquainted with a sheep at his barbecue this lunchtime. So I am going to say something that may be completely uninformed and insensitive, but everything I’ve glimpsed of rural life has led me to believe this: sheep are pig-ignorant. (I also think that pigs are sheep-ignorant, but that’s a subject for a different book.)
| Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Psalm 100.1–3 |
